


Grief

by MrsHamill



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-13
Updated: 2005-09-13
Packaged: 2018-05-22 02:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6066781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHamill/pseuds/MrsHamill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He found himself wanting to pull Blair to his chest and rock him like a child, cry with him, comfort him. But he couldn't. Someone had to be strong in this, and it looked as though it had to be Jim. <i></i></i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief

**Author's Note:**

> It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I work through personal problems by writing. I'm having a very difficult time coming to terms with my beloved mother-in-law's impending death and needed to find a way to write about it, hence my return to Sentinel fandom. Unfortunately, this (which was supposed to be a lot shorter and quieter) decided to grow something of a plot. Typical, for my slattern MuseBoy. This is not strictly canon, which has Grace Ellison divorced from William, not dead. Slight, non-spoiler warning: this features the death of a canon character. Thank you, Thalia, for the beta. This is dedicated to Lee Writestuff and Legion, two lovely ladies who should not have had so much pain in their lives.

They squabbled all the way home -- together, for a change, Jim driving -- over dinner and what to watch on the tube and whose turn it was to do laundry and the relative merits of free agent players versus taking kids right out of high school. There wasn't anything new to their evening until the phone rang, quite late.

He picked it up, willing it _not_ to be Simon. "Ellison." 

"Blair Sandburg, please." The voice on the other end was unfamiliar.

Blair caught the cordless phone, and Jim headed to the bathroom to begin getting ready to retire. "Yeah, this is he. Who's calling? Oh... yeah, I..."

Jim pissed, washed his hands and only while drying them realized Blair's voice had fallen silent. He left the bathroom and looked curiously at his roommate. Blair was standing where he had been when he caught the phone and his face was dead white. 

Alarmed, Jim hurried to him, plucking the phone from his nerveless fingers. "Who is this?"

"My name is Ralph, Ralph Olsen. I've been with Naomi..."

Oh, yeah, the guy Naomi had been seeing, the last time she'd spoken with Blair. "Yeah, what's going on? What did you say to Sandburg?"

"It's... it's Naomi. She's..." Jim heard the Olsen guy take a shaky breath. Knowing it was going to be bad, he wrapped one arm around Blair's middle, holding him up. "She died. Earlier tonight."

"Oh, God." Blair still wasn't moving, was barely breathing. "How? What happened?"

Olsen swallowed hard. "She had a tumor. A brain tumor. She'd just been diagnosed, the doctors, they thought she'd have more time..."

Naomi dead? Not possible. Not fucking possible... "Where are you?"

"This is Jim Ellison, right? Where's Blair? He needs... there's things..."

"We'll be there. Where are you?"

"Maine. We're... I'm in Maine. Portland, now, we'd been staying on Casco Bay, but then..."

"We'll be there tomorrow. Let me get the information from you. Hang on." Jim turned enough to toss the phone on the sofa behind them, then gently took Blair's shoulders. "Sandburg. Go sit down."

Blair blinked and gasped in a big breath. "What?"

"Go sit down. On the sofa. I need to get a pad and pen."

"Okay." Blair was pale and looked shocky -- understandable under the circumstances. Jim grabbed the legal pad they kept in the kitchen and all but ran back to the sofa and Sandburg and the phone.

"Okay, hit me. We should fly into Portland?"

* * *

By the time Jim hung up on Olsen, it was past midnight. At least, that's what Simon bellowed at him once he picked up the phone. "I know, sir, but... we're going to need some time off."

"What?! Jim, you can't..."

"Naomi's dead." Too late he realized he shouldn't have couched it that way; Blair, sitting next to him, jerked and buried his head in his hands.

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. "How?"

"Brain tumor, I think. They've got to get Sandburg's okay for an autopsy. We need to fly to Portland; I'm going to get our tickets tomorrow morning."

  
"Sweet Jesus." Through the phone, Jim could hear Simon rub his face. "Okay. I'll put the paperwork in for bereavement leave tomorrow morning. Either of you have anything cooking?"

"Just the Benchly case. Give it to Megan, she's been helping us interview. Everything else can wait."

"Right." Simon sighed. "Take care of the kid and keep me in the loop, you hear? All the places and times. We'll send something."

"I will." In the rush of things to do, Jim had almost forgotten that Simon had worked with and liked Naomi. "I'm about to pour Sandburg into bed. I'll call within the next couple of days."

Simon grunted and hung up. Jim hadn't even thought about the bereavement leave, and wondered why he'd been given it; it was Sandburg's mother who had died. But then the import of that thought hit him hard, right in the gut.

Naomi was dead. It didn't seem possible.

Blair was still sitting next to him on the couch, in a daze. Jim could see his fingers, where they covered his face, trembling. Without speaking, Jim rose and put the kettle on for tea before going into the bathroom and shaking two Benadryl tablets into his hand. By the time the kettle boiled, he'd found the herbal tea that usually worked to calm both of them down and quickly steeped two cups' worth. 

Sandburg was in shock, there was no other way to describe it. Jim put the two mugs of tea on the coffee table and touched Blair's shoulder. "Chief? I've got some pills for you here; you need to take them and then some tea."

"Pills?" Blair dropped his hands and looked stupidly at Jim's hand, extended towards him. "What pills?"

"Benadryl."

"That knocks me out," Blair said, weakly protesting.

With effort, Jim kept his voice low and soothing. "I know. That's why I want you to take them. We'll get up early tomorrow, pack and hit the airport. I've got all the info we need."

Blair looked so confused and lost that Jim felt almost overwhelmed with feeling -- some sympathy, some sadness, and a lot of tenderness, so much it almost choked him. He found himself wanting to pull Blair to his chest and rock him like a child, cry with him, comfort him. But he couldn't. Someone had to be strong in this, and it looked as though it had to be Jim. Blair was strong and capable in every area but one -- his mother. This was so sudden and was going to be unbelievably hard.

And Jim would have to shoulder his own pain at losing Naomi by himself. But he was strong, and he could carry both their grief for a while. He hoped.

Whatever Blair saw in Jim's eyes made him look away, look down at the pills, which he took and washed down with tea. Then, obviously moving on automatic pilot, he went to his room and went to bed.

Jim sat on the sofa alone for a long time before finally going to bed himself.

* * *

_"But where's Mom? Where is she? Is she still in the hospital? I want... I need to talk to her!"_

_"She's gone, she's not going to be here anymore, and I'm not going to say this again. Go get dressed, Jimmy, we have to go to church."_

_"But it's Tuesday, and we don't go to church on Tuesdays, and we can't go without Mom!"_

_"Do as I say. Now, Jimmy."_

_Sally came in to his room when his father left. Jim could hear him yelling at Stephen, who was already sniffling. "Do you need help getting dressed? You need to wear your dark suit and the tie."_

_"No, I can do it..."_

_"Good. Because Stevie will need your help, Jimmy. Your father won't be able to help him dress."_

_"Sally, where's Mom? Why isn't she here?"_

_Sally drew him into a gentle, quick embrace. "Oh, Jimmy. I'm so sorry."_

_But what was she sorry_ for _?_

* * *

The flight to Portland was bumpy and hard and expensive, even after the so-called 'bereavement discount' the airline offered. They flew Northwest and had to stop in Detroit to change planes. Sandburg didn't say more than five words the entire time, just sat in the center seat with his eyes closed. The plane was crowded and Jim wanted so much to draw his friend to his side and offer comfort but could not. He wasn't even certain how such a movement would be taken.

They had to hustle to catch the connection in Detroit, and the plane from Detroit to Portland was less crowded, which meant they had the three seats to themselves. Sandburg spread out a bit and let Jim raise the seat arm between them. The plane lifted off and Jim put another piece of gum in his mouth to help his ears. 

"I'm sorry, man."

If Jim's ears hadn't popped a moment before, he would have missed the softly voiced apology. "For what, junior?"

Blair shook his head and swallowed. "For... you know, for falling... I wasn't... I mean, this was so..."

"Out of the blue."

"Yeah." Jim could smell the faint salt of tears; he wrenched his smell dial back down. "I just never... I always thought, you know, she'd slow down, we'd get a place in the country and she'd just... she'd just..."

"Never go." Jim swallowed hard. He needed to be there for Blair, not overcome with his own grief. 

"Yeah." 

The plane leveled off and the 'fasten seatbelts' sign blinked off. Jim checked his dials and made sure hearing and smell were as low as he felt he could comfortably go. He hated plane travel.

"I mean, it shouldn't be such a surprise. All the traveling and not once did we get hijacked. We were on the periphery of war or worse I don't know how many times. Every time I'd think, this is it, we are in _so_ deep, she'd charm or talk her way out of trouble, every time. It's just... it's just hard to believe..." Blair looked away and sighed. "I didn't mean to fall apart on you, man."

"It's all right." What he wanted to do was wrap an arm around Blair's shoulders and tuck the guy into his armpit, let him snuggle and take comfort. What he did was awkwardly pat his shoulder and sigh. "I understand. You know... it's only..." That was probably the wrong thing to say, but luckily, Sandburg came to his rescue, as he had so many times before. 

"It's only going to get worse." 

"Yeah."

"I know."

Ralph Olsen was waiting for them at the airport. Blair had met the guy, briefly, when he and Naomi had blown through Cascade on their way to the east coast. He'd told Jim at the time it was just another one of Naomi's conquests -- dazed, besotted and amused by Naomi's wiles. They hadn't had a lot of time to visit, since Blair still hadn't amassed a lot of leave with the PD and Naomi had _had_ to be in Maine by a certain date, something about karmic convergences or some other bullshit. Jim had been amused by Blair's description of the meeting and remembered wishing he could have said hello in person. Naomi was a character, a flake and a bit of a troublemaker but it was hard to dislike her. Even after the dissertation mess, he had still cared for the woman. She was special.

Had been special.

So the Olsen character was quite a bit older than Jim had imagined him, or perhaps he'd aged since Blair had seen him. He looked as though he needed sleep. He shook Blair's hand and then turned to Jim, nodding at Blair's mumbled introductions. Jim shook his hand; it was damp and almost limp.

"There's a Sheraton down by... by the medical center, that's where I'm staying," Olsen said. "I've made another reservation for you. It's just one room, I wasn't sure if you needed one room or two. And you don't have to stay there, wherever is fine."

"It'll be fine," Jim said, herding his charges towards baggage claim. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

"And I have the numbers..." Olsen stopped speaking to swallow, hard. 

"We can wait until we get to the hotel for that," Jim said, decisively. "Everything's closed now anyway, I'm sure."

"Yeah. Yeah, the Medical Examiner's office is closed. I'll just give you the paperwork, Blair. And I have, I have all her stuff. Her clothing and such. Some of it is still out at the island, but we can go out there later. The people who own the cabin know... they know what happened."

Jim set Blair and Olsen on the baggage carousel while he went over to book them a rental car. Olsen probably had one as well, but Jim preferred to have his own wheels.

It took some wrangling, but they finally made it to the Sheraton and checked in. He kept on ear on Blair and Olsen as they talked, but was reassured to hear them dancing around the subject but not on it. "Could I order some room service too?" Jim asked the clerk as she pushed an envelope carrying two card-keys to him.

"Sure," she replied. "But if you want to see a menu..." 

"No, that's fine, just something generic, like burgers? With a salad?"

She gave him a sympathetic look. "You're with Mr. Olsen, aren't you? His companion's son?"

Jim swallowed down a flash of irritation. Apparently, Olsen hadn't been all that closed-mouth about something that really wasn't anyone's business but their own. "Yeah," he replied shortly.

"How about French dip? With steak fries and a Cesar salad? I get that sometimes when I'm on late shift, and it's pretty good."

"That'd be great. Two of 'em. Thanks." He would have said yes to pretty much anything at that point, though it was hardly the clerk's fault that he was in a foul mood. Sandburg had been trying to get him to curb the irrational anger with partial success, but there were still times...

"...those headaches. We didn't know. I kept trying to get her to go to the doctor." Olsen was speaking to Blair as Jim returned with the room key-cards. "She said she didn't want to take anything that would mess up her chakras."

"Yeah, that sounds like her." Blair was studying the carpet beneath his feet. "She'd get migraines sometimes, but she'd never go in for a checkup."

Jim bumped carefully into Sandburg. "We're all set, and they're bringing dinner up to us," he said, nodding at Olsen. "We're in room 823."

"I'm down the hall from you, then, 807. I'll ride up with you."

* * *

_There were people all over the church, grownups, mostly, all of them wearing black. Stevie was clutching at him, trying to hold onto Dad's hand but Dad had shaken him off, pushed him back._

_"So sorry for your loss, Bill." The grownups were all shaking Dad's hand, glancing at him and Stevie as though they were surprised to see kids. He didn't understand what was happening, wanted his mom or someone to tell him what was happening._

_Sally left them with a small, sad smile to sit in the back of the church. "That's where she belongs," Dad said shortly, pushing them forward. "For God's sake, Stephen, stop blubbering."_

_The church was filled with big, white flowers, and he sneezed, twice. "You have a handkerchief, use it," Dad snapped._

_All around them, he heard the murmurs of grownups. "So sad..." "Such a terrible loss..." "...and him with two kids to raise..." "He didn't deserve her. She was too good for him." "The boys, why on Earth would he have brought the boys here?" They walked down the aisle towards the front of the church where there was a big, white box and the priest, Father Dan._

_But where was Mom?_

* * *

At least the beds in their room were queen-sized.

They spent a restless night and got up early to face the day, still jet-lagged and shell-shocked. Olsen met them for breakfast and then took them over to the government building where the ME's office was. He did not go inside, but told Blair he'd be back at the hotel and to make sure he stopped by after everything was taken care of.

Jim had been a cop -- and a soldier before that -- for a long time. He'd seen his share of dead bodies. But he found himself almost nauseated at the thought of seeing Naomi laid out on a slab, covered with a sheet, wearing a toe-tag instead of a toe-ring. Blair was as subdued as he'd been since they found out; he answered questions shortly, concisely, with no added stories tacked on. It was the most taciturn Jim had ever seen Sandburg.

The Assistant M.E. was a small woman of Asian extraction. She was efficient and sympathetic but obviously overworked or at least rushed. She met with them in her office, once Blair's identity had been established. Jim caught her giving him odd looks but, thankfully, she didn't ask about his presence.

"We can do an autopsy if you'd like, Mr. Sandburg, but I must tell you two points first. I've seen the x-rays and diagnosis from her doctor here in town, and from the looks and placement of the tumor, I'm ninety percent certain that's what killed her. Also, if you wish for us to have the autopsy done, it will take about two weeks. We're badly understaffed and backlogged, I'm afraid."

"Two weeks?" Blair's voice sounded strange. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and the A.M.E. let him have the time. "No." He swallowed, hard. "No, I guess it's not needed. If you're reasonably certain that's what did it..."

"The medical records are part of her effects, which have been in lockup here," she explained. "They're yours, now. Once the paperwork clears, her body can be released to a funeral home for preparation. Do you intend to return with her remains?"

Jim clamped down on his jaw so hard he was surprised he didn't crack a tooth. "It's not what she wanted," Blair almost whispered. "She always said, cremation and a wake, never a funeral, never lying in state."

"You'll still need a funeral home for that." She pulled a sheet of paper out of a folder on her desk. "Here's a list of the local funeral homes. We've only got four, but I'm sure one of them will help. As for her effects..."

There was signing of paperwork after that. Reams and reams of paperwork, and bills (that would hopefully end up being paid from Naomi's life insurance), and directions to various places. Naomi had died in Mercy Hospital's emergency room, having been taken there by ambulance after falling unconscious in the hotel room she had been sharing with Olsen. Her effects mostly consisted of the clothing she'd been wearing and the jewelry she had on, a small amount for a lady of such great stature.

The only truly bad note had been when Blair had asked to see her body. The A.M.E. was agreeable, after making sure Blair would know the state her body would be in. "We're cops," Blair had said, giving Jim a sad look. "We're used to seeing dead bodies."

_Not like this_ , Jim viciously clamped down on the thought. Blair needed him to be strong, so he would be strong. 

Naomi was on a slab in the cooler. She was naked but covered by a sheet which the attendant on duty gently pulled back so they could see her face. Jim took one look and then looked at Blair, watched Blair, paid attention to Blair only. The body on the slab, the cold, bluish body with matted red hair wasn't Naomi. It was just the meat she used when she was alive. That's all.

Blair stood there far longer than Jim wanted, but Jim didn't move, wouldn't move until Blair did. Finally, Blair reached out and gently caressed Naomi's brow with two fingers. "Bye, Mom," he whispered. "I love you."

* * *

_Stevie was still sniffling, so Jimmy gave him his handkerchief. Father Dan gave him a sympathetic look before starting to talk, standing just in front of the big, white box._

_Part of Jimmy knew, Mom was in that box. Part of him knew that Mom wasn't going to be there for him anymore. But most of him was frantically searching for her, looking all around the church, through the big white flowers, past the grownups all dressed in black, waiting for Mom to come out and hug him, tell him everything was fine now._

_She'd been sick, sick for so long, and neither Jimmy nor Stevie had been allowed to see her in the hospital. They'd drawn pictures for her, and sometimes they got notes back, notes that smelled like Mom and didn't, all at the same time. She couldn't be gone, couldn't be dead. But he couldn't see her, couldn't smell or hear her, anywhere._

_Father Dan said something and Dad got up, pulling the boys out of their seats with him. "Come on. Stop sniveling, Stephen." They walked up towards the altar and the big white box, and Jimmy was just tall enough to see something in the box, something dressed in Mom's favorite blue dress. At that point, he lost it._

_"NO!" He wrenched his hand from Dad's and backed away, trembling, terrified. "NO!"_

_"James Ellison, get back here," Dad snarled, reaching for him._

_"Bill, don't." It was Bud, his friend Bud, and he had Jimmy's hand. Jimmy turned, wrapped his arms around and buried his head in Bud's middle and suddenly realized how hard he was shaking._

_"Heydash, what do you think..."_

_"They're too young for this, Bill. Let me take them for a while, you don't need the distraction."_

_Even though Jimmy couldn't see him, he knew Dad was all red-faced and angry, just like he got whenever something didn't go right for him. He heard Father Dan's voice next, though, not Dad's. "Bill, let them go with Bud. It's better for them both."_

* * *

They went with Hay and Peabody Funeral Home and signed the paperwork with them for a simple casket and cremation. The sympathetic young man who helped them was competent and quiet and both those attributes pleased Jim. By the end of that very long day, all the arrangements had been made and the cremation set for sunset on the next day. They would take Naomi's ashes back with them; Blair said he knew what she wanted done with them.

Olsen was in his room when they returned and immediately answered their knock. He looked worn and pasty. "Is everything...?"

"Yeah, it's all arranged," Blair said. "Tomorrow at sunset is the cremation. You've got her stuff with you?"

"Some of it," Olsen said, throwing the door open wide. His room was a suite with a king-sized bed and a small sitting area. "We didn't even get the chance to fully unpack, you know, it was so sudden... all so sudden. And her trunk is still out on the island."

"I'd like to go get that early tomorrow, if that's okay," Blair said. His voice was still subdued but firmer. "Can you come with us?"

"Certainly, certainly," Olsen said, bobbing his head and swallowing. "I was thinking about going back out there, once, you know... The lease is good until the middle of October, when the weather starts getting bad." Olsen opened the closet door and pulled Naomi's two big, green suitcases out. "I put everything back that she had taken out. And here's her purse. There's only the trunk and a couple of smaller bags left."

They took everything -- the suitcases, the purse, the paperwork and effects bag from the M.E.'s office and the funeral home package -- back to their room, and Jim suddenly wished he'd asked for a larger room. Blair sat down on his bed, staring at the purse he held in his hands. Jim remembered that purse, the big, colorful macramé bag Naomi carried with her everywhere. It seemed she could produce pretty much everything out of that bag, anything anyone could ever need. Everything except something to prevent her death.

"You... uh, you want to go out to eat?" Jim asked, sitting gingerly on his own bed, across from Blair. 

After a moment, Blair looked up. "Out?" Jim nodded. "Oh. Um... couldn't we just get something delivered here? Pizza, maybe?"

"Yeah," Jim replied, jumping up and looking for the hotel's guest guide. "I'm sure we can. Your usual?"

"Yeah." 

Glad to be useful again, Jim found a pizza delivery place and put an order for the two of them, watching as Blair turned and upended the purse on his bed, spilling out the detritus of Naomi's life on the bland, blue-green bedspread. 

"They should be here in twenty or so," Jim said. He stood at the foot of Blair's bed and watched Blair sort through the heap of stuff. 

"Good." Blair picked up a tube of lipstick and opened it, smiling. "She would almost literally go to the ends of the earth for this exact shade, you know? She's probably got five more stashed in the trunk. That and _Joy of Cooking_ were the only two things she _had_ to have with her all the time, the only things that 'tied her to the material plane,' as she put it."

Jim couldn't turn his smell dial down and realized the lipstick -- hell, the whole bag -- still carried Naomi's scent. He clamped his jaw down when he felt it starting to tremble. 

"This is the key to the safety-deposit box in Cascade," Blair continued, looking through Naomi's key case. For someone who was as footloose and fancy-free as Naomi, she certainly had a lot of keys. "She's got another one in Switzerland. For emergencies." He fingered the other keys. "I've got the duplicates for the storage space in Cascade, the one that holds things she couldn't take with her but wouldn't throw away. There's not much there, either... Naomi wasn't the packrat type. The Volvo is probably still in storage at Robert's. I'll have to get it from him."

There was a long, thick item that looked like an address book on steroids, held together with rubber bands. "What's that?" Jim asked, surprised his voice sounded so normal. 

"That's 'the book,'" Blair replied with a faint grin. He pulled the bands off. "This is where everything went -- tickets, important papers, passports, maps... everything she'd need." He started to sort through the papers but stopped, suddenly. Two fat business envelopes with the Sheraton logo, one addressed to Blair and the other to Jim, were tucked into the back. Blair looked up at Jim for a moment, then solemnly handed the one addressed to him over.

"I think I'll... go downstairs and wait for the pizza," Jim said, carefully putting the envelope on his bed. "Be right back." He fled.

* * *

_It was cool and spitting rain outside, but Bud found them a dry place to sit outside the church. Stevie crawled on his lap and whimpered, and Jimmy sat as close as he could._

_"Where's Mommy?" Stevie whispered, and Bud stroked Stevie's hair back from his face._

_"Your mom is in Heaven, now," he said, softly._

_"I wanna go there! I want Mommy!" Stevie's tears started in earnest now, and Bud pulled a hankie out of his pocket._

_"You can't go there yet, Sport, it's not time for you."_

_Jimmy focused on the raindrops dripping from the church's meager playground equipment. Drip. Drip._

_"Why not? Why can't I?"_

_"Because you're not dead," Jimmy said, his voice low and hard. "You have to be dead to go to Heaven and we're not dead." Drip. Drip. Drip._

_Bud wrapped his arm around Jimmy's shoulders. "Oh, Jimmy, I'm so sorry."_

_Roughly, Jimmy swiped the back of his hand over his eyes. He was a big boy, and big boys don't cry. Dad told him that, over and over again. "I'm not."_

_Bud started but Jimmy wouldn't look at him. Drip. Drip. "What do you mean, Jimmy?"_

_"I'm not sorry. She's happier in Heaven. We all would be." Drip._

_"Maybe," Bud agreed. The arm he had around Jimmy's shoulder tightened. "But we can sometimes make our own Heaven, here on Earth, you know. We just have to work at it."_

_Drip. Drip. Maybe, Jimmy thought. But he'd never be able to do it. He just knew it, somehow. Heaven for him would be after he died, not before._

_Drip._

* * *

The ferry to Casco Bay Island ran four times a day, but you could always hire a launch if you wanted to. That area of Maine was so overrun with wealthy tourists, even in September, after the tourists season, that there was no shortage of people ready to take advantage of a tourist wanting to sleep in late. But they caught the ferry, early, so they'd get to the island early.

It was a car ferry, and Jim insisted on driving his rental rather than taking Olsen's car. The trip was interminable, the sky leaden with the promise of rain and the wind freshening into cold gusts. The island itself was insanely picturesque; signs pointing the way to resorts and inns that probably cost more to rent in a week than the monthly mortgage cost for the loft. 

They had been staying in a cabin owned by one of the smaller resort companies. It was 'rustic,' as it said on the sign, but to Jim it was less rustic than sybaritic. An A-frame house looking out over the ocean was rustic?

"There are things that will have to be packed," Olsen said as they walked into the cabin. "That night, when she got that awful headache, it was all I could do to pack for me. I'm not sure what else is hers, here."

"We'll go through it," Blair said. 

Olsen was standing at the big picture window, looking down at the small table which stood between two wing chairs. "We were sitting here, drinking this fantastic wine she'd found." He picked up one of the flute glasses from the table; there was a faint mark of Naomi's lipstick on the rim. "She'd had another one of those headaches, a bad one, but she said it went away after she meditated. I'd been all but begging her to go see a doctor, but she wouldn't go."

"She hates doctors almost as much as she hates policemen," Blair said softly, a wry smile on his face. 

"When the headache came back, she passed out from the pain. The clinic doctor had her airlifted to the mainland; I packed our things in a hurry and had a launch pick me up." He still held the glass, but his gaze was out the window and into the past. "They did tests, MRIs; I got a room at the hotel for us, and she would come back there in between the tests. Then, late that night..."

Jim, who had remained in the doorway, turned and quietly slipped back out, onto the porch. He sat down on the steps and put his head in his hands. He could remain strong for Blair, for a while longer. Blair needed him to be strong, but it was so damned hard.

He carried the letter addressed to him in the pocket of his coat. He'd read it the night before, after Blair had fallen asleep. He'd taken the letter into the bathroom and sat on the toilet and read every page, over and over, so that he didn't need to look at it to remember the words. 

_Dear Jim,_

_Years ago, once Blair started at the university and we were no longer together all the time, I wrote him a letter that would be my last letter to him, in case I died while away from him. It was my way of comforting him from beyond the grave, I suppose, a sort of 'if you're reading this letter, I'm dead' kind of thing. I've updated it, periodically, adding to it rather than writing over it. In an odd way, it almost became like a diary or a journal of my life, for his eyes only._

_Once I met you and realized my baby would be living with you for a long time to come, I started another letter, to you, and have been adding to it too, ever since. This is my latest addition, and something inside me tells me it might be my last one. You'll read them all and take any meaning you wish from them, but there's one thing I need to tell you._

_I'm not going to ask you to protect my boy, I already know you will. If you have a flaw, it's perhaps that you're too much of a protector. Let Blair protect you too, Jim, let him do what he wants to do, what he needs to do. He loves you, Jim, with all his heart. And I know you love him, too._

_Blair told me once that everyone you loved left you in one way or another, and it's why you stay closed off so often. I'm telling you now that you are the luckiest man alive -- you've loved. It doesn't matter whether you've loved and lost, only that you've loved. It's why I'll cheerfully go to my grave, because I've loved. I've lost too, but that doesn't matter._

_Let Blair love you, Jim. I promise you won't be sorry._

_Love, always,_

_Naomi_

The other letters with that one were all in date order, oldest at the bottom. The second one down from the last one was dated just after the dissertation fiasco, and all it said was, "I'm sorry."

Jim wondered what she had said on Blair's letter, but was too terrified to ask.

* * *

The last piece of luggage was a battered steamer trunk that might have been a hundred years old. The moment Blair opened it, his face fell. Jim knew he would have to be firm or else they'd be staying in the house for the next couple of days while Blair went through every item in the trunk.

"We'll have it shipped from Portland," he murmured. Blair was on his knees next to the trunk, and Jim sank down to his haunches beside him. "It'll get there as soon as we do."

Blair swallowed hard, but nodded. 

After that, it was easy. There were some personal items that fit into the trunk or into the smaller bags, then they loaded the whole thing up into the rental and drove away, towards the ferry and Portland.

There wasn't much to do after that. Naomi's will was in the Cascade safe deposit box, and Blair knew he was the primary heir. Jim got a box from the hotel management and put all of Naomi's clean clothes and most of her toiletries into it then got directions to the local Goodwill. Her dirty clothing, used toiletries and anything else that didn't have a sentimental value he trashed.

They arrived at the funeral home an hour before the cremation. Blair had an old envelope in his hands that he stared at all the way there. Jim could see Naomi's elegant handwriting on the outside, faded to purple from age. 

"What's that?" he asked as they waited in the lobby.

"It's... it's from Naomi. It was the last bit in her letter. It's dated two weeks after my birthday, 1969."

Jim's face must have shown his confusion, because Blair sighed. "It holds the name of my father. She said I had a right to know, especially after she was gone."

Stunned, Jim shifted that paradigm and finally closed his mouth. "You... you haven't opened it?"

"No." Blair was clearly preoccupied but the question was a no-brainer to Jim... of course he would want to know. But Blair was Blair, and apparently it meant something different to him.

"Mr. Sandburg?" The young lady who entered the room was wearing a tasteful uniform. "We're ready."

"Thank you." After a moment, Blair followed her, which meant Jim followed as well. Olsen had decided to go back to the cabin on the last ferry and miss the cremation. Jim felt for him; having weathered Hurricane Naomi himself for the last six years, feeling her absence was like a hole through the middle of everything.

Blair had chosen a very plain, dark casket. It was closed, to Jim's relief, and rested on a covered gurney. "The cremation process takes less than an hour. We can have the urn boxed and ready for you first thing in the morning."

"That would be fine," Blair murmured. He walked over to the casket and rested his hand on it. Jim stayed near the door being strong as best he could. After a moment, Blair put the letter in his hand on top of the casket. "Please, can this go with it, just like this?" 

The young lady blinked. "Certainly," she replied. She didn't ask and her professionalism level went up several notches in Jim's eyes. 

"Thank you for giving me the option," Blair murmured, so softly even Jim had to strain to hear. "But I don't need to know. You were the only parent I ever needed, the only parent I ever wanted." The sharp scent of tears flooded Jim's nose. "I love you, Mom. And I miss you, so much."

With a final pat, he left the sealed letter where it was on the casket and turned to leave. When their eyes met, Blair smiled sadly but said nothing.

* * *

_Jimmy found out where his mother was buried almost by accident. Once he knew, however, he would persuade whoever he could to drive him there, so he could sit by the headstone and talk to his mother. Bud would bring him, as would Sally, if he so wished._

_He never asked his father._

_He would bring things with him; books he had discovered, wildflowers from a beautiful meadow, bouquets of fall leaves. And he would sit and he would talk, tell her about his day, his life, what he wanted to do. But he wouldn't cry, and it wasn't just because his father said only sissies cried. He wouldn't cry because she might think his crying was because she was gone. He knew she was happier where she was than on Earth, and the only reason he had to cry was that he couldn't go to Heaven to visit her until he died._

_Once, he brought Stevie with him, but by then, their father had nearly made them into enemies so it was a pointless exercise. Stephen didn't remember her as well as he did, anyway._

_The last time he visited her grave it was to tell her he was being deployed to South America on an anti-insurgency mission._

* * *

They flew back to Cascade, dropped things off, retrieved other things, then immediately left again. This time they drove, down the coast to Big Sur, taking it easy. They were still on bereavement leave and would be for another five days, according to Simon. Megan had solved the Benchly case for them, which suited Jim fine. That case was nothing but a headache anyway.

There was a spot off the Cabrillo Highway, just south of the Pfeiffer State Park, where Naomi loved to meditate. The bluffs were high and the surf below them wild and the only thing Jim could smell was ocean and grass. Blair held the small urn which carried Naomi's ashes on his lap, carefully. He had been mostly silent the entire two-day trip. It was nearly dawn; they'd risen from their beds in the hotel outside of Carmel-by-the-Sea at four a.m. and now stood in the pre-dawn cacophony of silence.

Blair was still sad and still had moments of stillness but Jim didn't feel he needed to be strong for him any longer, which left him with a conundrum: who would be strong for Jim? Naomi seemed to think Blair could, but how could he use Blair's shoulder to mourn on? It was Blair's mother who had died. Jim had read and re-read Naomi's letter since that evening in Portland until the ink had been driven into his fingerprints, but he still wasn't sure what to do. Being strong was what he knew. It was easy.

Only it wasn't.

As the sun rose behind them, warming their backs, Blair opened the urn. The wind was blowing offshore, and it carried Naomi's ashes far and wide, deep into the sea, letting her continue to wander even in death. As the day lengthened, Jim heard voices from others, cars coming down the road, and further afield, heard machinery in the fields and woods behind them. 

They stood silently, together, while Jim fought a losing battle to maintain his strength. Finally, the weight of grief forced him down to one knee, and he watched the waves fracture and prism before him. He couldn't do it, it took too much from him. Giving in to the pain, he hung his head down.

A pair of warm, strong hands lifted it back up, and he found himself looking into Blair Sandburg's dark blue eyes. "It's okay, Jim," he murmured. "We can prop each other up."

"I don't know if I..."

"I do."

With a gentle smile, one that was half-sad and half-accepting, Blair leaned in and warmed Jim's lips with his own. And Jim found his Heaven at last. end


End file.
